'As you, Countess, are a Walloon,' Tzerclas answered with a low bow. 'Yet doubtless you count yourself a German?'
'Yes,' she said, blushing. 'I am proud to do so.'
What courteous answer he would have made to this I do not know. She had scarcely spoken before a deep voice on the farther side of the fire was heard to ask 'What of Count Pappenheim?'
The speaker was Von Werder, who had long sat so modestly silent that I had forgotten his presence. He seemed scarcely to belong to the party; though Fraulein Max, who sat on the Waldgrave's left hand, formed a sort of link stretched out towards him. Tzerclas had forgotten him too, I think, for he started at the sound of his voice and gave him but a curt answer.
'He is no general,' he said sharply. 'A great leader of horse he is; great at fighting, great at burning, greatest at plundering. No more.'
'It seems that you allow no merit in a German!' the Waldgrave cried with a sneer. He had drunk too much.
But Tzerclas was not to be moved. There was something fine in the toleration he extended to the younger man. 'Not at all,' he said quietly. 'Yet I am of opinion that, even apart from arms, Germany has shown since the beginning of this war few men of merit.'
'The Duke of Bavaria,' the same deep voice beyond the fire suggested.
'Maximilian?' Tzerclas answered. This time he did not seem to resent the stranger's interference. 'Yes, he is something of a statesman. You are right, my friend. He and Leuchtenstein, the Landgrave's minister--he too is a man. I will give you those two. But even they play second parts. The fate of Germany lies in no German hands. It lies in the hands of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstierna, Swedes; of Wallenstein, a Bohemian; of--I know not who will be the next foreigner.'
'That is all very well; but you are a foreigner yourself,' the Waldgrave cried.